Certain moist baked goods such as muffins, pancakes, cakes, brownies, and the like are typically made from scratch or from a dry mix, where consumers make a batter by adding liquids to dry ingredients and then bake the batter soon after mixing. While these methods can produce high quality baked goods, preparation of the batters can be time consuming and messy. Additionally, the batter should be used by the consumer immediately to provide for optimum leavening action and because the batters are not microbiologically stable.
Some of these issues have been overcome by preparing muffins and other batter-based baked goods from frozen batters, which require the consumer to thaw prior to baking the batter (a time consuming step). However, the refrigerated storage life of the thawed batter is typically short (often on the order of a few days). If the entire batch is not used relatively quickly, there is a risk that the unused portion of the batter will spoil and be wasted.
There exist some premixed refrigerated doughs, such as bread dough, cookie dough, and the like. These doughs typically need to be hermetically sealed, stored under pressure and/or placed in modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) in order to provide good shelf stability properties under refrigerated storage conditions. As a result, after the consumer opens the packaging for initial use of the product, the refrigerated dough cannot be stored for long periods of time thereafter.